Shipping things to China has been nothing but disaster for me. DHL is absolutely incompetent. Personally, I don't think it's worth shipping things over. Too much hassle, and Chinese Customs is a huge F*CKING black hole.

I cannot stand dealing with Chinese Customs Officials. They are capricious and have no F*CKING idea what they are doing, what they need, or who to go to. It's an absolutely time and money drain.

If you can, I highly suggest avoiding mailing things. There's no guarantee you will see them again. At least from my experience, I've had at most a 50-50 success rate in getting things mailed to me. And even the successful items took, literally, months.

I have given up. I'd rather just buy a plane ticket, go home, and stuff everything in suitcases.

Good to know. I have had things shipped to me from Australia and have had no issues. However, I have not previously attempted to ship anything from China. I'm wondering if anyone has had experience shipping out bulk items. i.e., I'm not talking about small parcels.

Good to know. I have had things shipped to me from Australia and have had no issues. However, I have not previously attempted to ship anything from China. I'm wondering if anyone has had experience shipping out bulk items. i.e., I'm not talking about small parcels.

Henry has some experience with importing-exporting companies in Hefei. I remember in a WeChat group he recommended a company, but I completely forgot about it. I don't think he posts here often, but you might want to message him and ask him companies he recommends.

And my experience has been mailing stuff from America to China. You need to be extremely careful what you mail. There's a long black-list of items that are a no-no. For example, I tried to import a textbook from the U.S. It was held in customs for a month because they didn't know how to freakin' declare it.

The issue was that I declared it as a 'Global Economics Textbook' but 'Global Economics' is a no-no for import. However 'Economics Textbook' is. So, it was first rejected because it was 'Global Economics' rather than 'Economics'. Then, they wanted an ISBN number, but the book had no ISBN number, so they were absolutely at a lost for how to input it into their forms. I eventually got it after basically telling them 'I don't care how you declare it, just tell me what you need me to say to get my book!' This was all through FedEx BTW.

This time, my parents tried to mail my family and I a christmas package. The problem this time is that even though DHL in the U.S had an itemised list and my family in the U.S declared everything, it apparently didn't matter upon arrival in Shanghai. It took a week for the DHL contact to tell us what we needed. It was constant changing: 'I need an itemised list. Oh, this needs to be more detailed. Oh, but this one is too detailed. We need your passport and visa stamp. Wait, never mind, we need the shippers Passport and DL. Never mind, we only need their DL.'

Once all those documents were submitted, the kicker: 'Package rejected by customs. Entry will be corrected and resubmitted'

The DHL contact filled the f*cking forms out wrong. This is by far the most excruciating experience on my life in China so far.

oh, wow. That level of inanity never even occurred to me. Guess I'll be reassessing my need to send stuff home. If I were to just send clothing, would I have to declare each and every item? e.g., 3 pairs underwear (red color only), Chinese man bag, Mao suit...